The heroism and controversy of the 1936 Olympics is to be retold in a dramatisation made in time for the London Olympics.

TalkbackThames, the producers of The Bill, have teamed with a German production company to tell the story of the 1936 Olympics in a docufiction drama that will screen before the Olympics in 2012.

Titled The Olympics, the two-part drama will tell the story of filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl and US black athlete Jesse Owens' triumph at the Games.

"We will tell our stories around these figures," said Lorraine Heggessey, chief executive of TalkbackThames, speaking at MIPCOM in Cannes.

The docu-drama will be co-produced by TalkbackThames and UFA Fernsehproduktion. Today the two companies announced that they would partner in a drama production unit.

Adolf Hitler will be a character in the miniseries. He famously refused to shake hands with black US athlete Owens, who won four gold medals at the games.

"The handshake he refused Jesse Owens will be in the miniseries," said Norbert Sauer, managing director of UFA Fernsehproduktion. "We will have one or two figures that we invent like a British journalist," he said.

Scripts are in development for the two 90-minute episodes. The drama will follow Owens when he returns the US and encounters racism in his homeland in the wake of his Olympics win.

Last year the two companies collaborated on a joint storyline that appeared both on The Bill and SOKO Leipzig, a police drama produced by UFA Fernsehproduktion. A two-part storyline appeared on both programmes and was filmed in London and Leipzig.

The unit is also developing an international police drama called The Hub, an eight-part series where detectives from both the UK and Germany will investigate "crimes without borders".

"Usually you develop a drama in one country and you try and persuade others to take it," Heggessey said. "Here we bring together both sides and both sides know what the audiences both want and that is designed in from the start."

The drama development unit will be based in Berlin and run by Johnathan Young, head of drama at TalkbackThames and Jorg Winger, executive producer, UFA Fernsehproduktion.

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